Thursday, December 23, 2010

Shame all round, boys

Now I know that with the Great Big Non-Story of Nick Riewoldt's Willy (and of course that's what this is really all about: is it that he thinks it isn't big enough, or is he embarrassed about being caught in a pose that might shout 'wanker'?) we are back in the land of what my Facebook Friend Lord Sedgwick calls the Single Digit IQ Nuff Nuff, original ref to Brendan Fevola and Lara Bingle.

But does that time-honoured 'quality' newspaper The Age, which I'm old enough to remember as a once mighty power in the land, really need to get in on the act as well? Note to Paul Millar and Jared Lynch: It's 'stream of consciousness', boys. Not 'stream-of-conscience'.

(NB: also, Elizabeth Jolley has already made this joke. But she was doing it on purpose.)

Actually, I don't see any sign of any conscience anywhere in this whole story. Not even a trickle. Just infantile narcissism and total abnegation of responsibility for one's own behaviour as far as the eye can see. That and the tip of the iceberg that is the pig-dog ugly subculture of the AFL-and-women.

But I hope that young woman is enjoying her ten minutes of fame, because the AFL is going to swing all of its power and money into action and crush her like a bug. And more vain and misguided young women will swan in to fill the tiny gap she leaves in the AFL's neverending supply of stupid girls, and nothing will change. A plague on both your houses.

14 comments:

Lord Sedgwick said...

Sadly, the Age ceased being a decent paper when Graham Perkin became deceased.

It's now a tabloid unwilling to come out of its broadsheet shoji closet.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Still better than the OO though!

iODyne said...

I wish I was not aware of any of it, but one fact that shocked me is that many people have known since last February and it has been stifled.
What else have they stifled, and
Fact 2; the girl is at least persistent.
We must now consign to the WPB, defunct phrases such as 'a sporting chance', 'a good sport' etc.
'Big money + testosterone' is an ugly ugly sum.

Amanda said...

I do not wish a pox on the girl's house. It's pretty evident that she has been serially abused and sexually exploited from a very young age. A pox yes on all the adults in her life who contributed to that or who could have but didn't stop it.

seepi said...

I'm really hoping that this little lesson about the uncontrollable nature of web publishing will finally make football clubs do something to clean up their act, rather than just covering up all these sordid sex stories.

please????

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Amanda, you are kinder than me, I think. You may be right, but the stories I've heard about the AFL girls suggest that they do have some say in their own fates. That said, she seems determined to wage war on the AFL and I think she will do some damage before they silence her. And in that, more power to her elbow.

Seepi, you'd hope so, wouldn't you. But I was thinking about this this afternoon, with reference to Williamson's The Club, and thinking that it's in the interests of the older men, non- or ex-players, to keep the players infantilised. The drinking and shagging and adolescent misogyny are all part of that.

Helen said...

Yesterday, listening to the radio, there were still comments about demands to "delete" the photographs "from the internet". The depth to which these people just don't get things still has the power to surprise me (Why?!)

seepi said...

FAscinating language used in this case too. They are calling her 'this woman', (despite her being under 18.)

yet when their footballers mess up they are super quick to label them as 'boys being boys'.

genevieve said...

Yes, woman is not at all a word that the Chidren's commissioner (?), Bernie Geary, is using. He is calling her a child and arguing that we should protect her from the simultaneous abuse/manipulation being perpetrated by the media, some lawyers and the AFL. Which surprised me until I thought about it, and on balance, his suggestions are consistent with his position, to say the least.

genevieve said...

pffft, typo, and too lazy to look up his title - inaugural Child Safety Commissioner.

iODyne said...

I came here to respond to a judgemental comment I got in my feed, but not here now.
The Child Safety Commissioner mentioned by Genevieve needs to think up solutions for parents struggling to control their teenage girls.
The girl in question has been abandoned to the airport press by hers - what on earth led them to such cruelty. Handcuffs are a desperate measure, but surely better than what they did.
Back when Corey*Worthington was being crucified, I thought his parents should be charged with neglect for leaving a 16-y-o alone in Victoria while they went to Qld.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Stax, I am with you: her parents are behaving abominably, which gives me more sympathy for her. Re the disappeared comment: as Teh Blogger in this instance, I believe it's me that's liable for anything legal, and I thought that comment was potentially a legal problem.

(Apart from being repulsive.)

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

All further comments from the AFL rape-culture apologist troll will be automatically deleted.

Sabbath said...

This is good

http://mike-stuchbery.com/2010/12/28/when-the-saints-go-chasing-teens/